Canucks talk tough after emotional loss to Kings

Brad Ziemer, Vancouver Sun01.13.2014

Tom Sestito of the Vancouver Canucks can’t get Jordan Nolan of the Los Angeles Kings to engage in a first-period scrap, a result of Nolan taking out Canucks captain Henrik Sedin, during Monday’s 1-0 Kings’ victory at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.Harry How
/ Getty Images

Mike Santorelli #25 of the Vancouver Canucks is chased down by Drew Doughty #8 of the Los Angeles Kings on a break away during the first period at Staples Center on January 13, 2014 in Los Angeles, CaliforniaHarry How
/ Getty Images

Slava Voynov #26 of the Los Angeles Kings makes a pass in front of Brad Richardson #15 of the Vancouver Canucks.Harry How
/ Getty Images

Jake Muzzin #6 of the Los Angeles Kings skates away from a check from Henrik Sedin #33 of the Vancouver Canucks.Harry How
/ Getty Images

Dustin Brown #23 and Drew Doughty #8 of the Los Angeles Kings wear Los Angeles Dodgers jerseys during warm up before the game against the Vancouver Canucks at Staples Center on January 13, 2014 in Los Angeles, California.Harry How
/ Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — Alex Edler is back in the Vancouver Canucks lineup and that sound you hear is fellow defenceman Dan Hamhuis breathing a sigh of relief...

ANAHEIM, Calif. — They are never going to be the Griffiths Way Goons, but the Vancouver Canucks say what started in Los Angeles on Monday night needs and will become a more consistent staple of their game.

In other words, they aren’t going to be pushed around any more.

“That is the way we need to play every night,” centre Ryan Kesler said after the Canucks practised Tuesday at the Honda Center, where they meet the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday (7:30 p.m., Sportsnet Pacific, Team 1040). “We don’t get enough credit for how tough we are … We have a tough team in here, we have guys who will stand up for each other and I think you saw that (Monday) night.”

Never has a 1-0 loss felt so good. The Canucks feel they gained something far more valuable than the two points they left behind at the Staples Center on Monday night. They think they proved to others — and maybe even to themselves — that they can play in the trenches.

Coach John Tortorella would have loved to have taken a point or two out of Los Angeles, but a day later he talked at length about how he thinks his team took a giant step forward in that loss to the Kings.

“We need to start taking some of the ice our way,” Tortorella said. “It’s a piece of ice that belongs to both teams, it depends on which team wants to do the things to get it. I thought we did that last night.”

Since the day he was hired, Tortorella has suggested the Canucks have been too easy to play against. He has been trying to change that and felt Monday night’s game was a blueprint to follow in the what figures to be a tough second half of the season.

“Quite honestly, I wasn’t concerned about the penalties or anything going on that way,” he said. “We needed to try and change and add some personality to our game as we get into the second half. And again, I don’t preface it just to L.A., it’s how we have to play as the season goes along here.

“It is tough to get points. I liked a lot of things about a lot of different people in our group in stepping out of themselves and doing some things you have to do to win hockey games … I think we took a step in the right direction (Friday night) against St. Louis. As I said last night I think we went into some areas of the game that we haven’t explored as a team, found some success, but didn’t get the ultimate as far as getting points. We need to try and drag all the good things we have gotten out of our last two games into this game.”

Tortorella isn’t just talking about the obvious physical play, like his team going after Dustin Brown for his hit earlier this month on Roberto Luongo, or Tom Sestito making Jordan Nolan pay for an earlier hit on Canucks captain Henrik Sedin.

“I thought we did some really good things last night,” he said. “Not just backing one another up, but along the boards, our battle level, understanding what is going on on the ice in situations as far as where you need to stand tall. If we are going to be a good team that has to be part of us.”

Canucks players said that team stiffness, as Tortorella likes to call it, needs to be a more regular part of their game.

Winger Zack Kassian, who was in the middle of it Monday night when he wasn’t off serving a pair of 10-minute misconducts, thinks the Canucks are capable of playing that type of tough hockey every night.

“We can play that game every night,” he said. “We just have to be a little smarter about it. We can play in-your-face kind of hockey. If things get out of hand I think we have proven, not to ourselves because we know in here we can do it, but for people around us and everything like that.”

We will find out Wednesday night whether the Canucks can actually gain momentum as a team from a loss. They clearly think they can.

“It’s a game you want to win, but later in the season I think it it’s going to do well for us,” Kassian said. “We are going to have some push-back. That is a game you look back on. It could be a turning point. I think it very well could be.”

“I think it was good for team morale,” added Kesler, who stepped up and fought his future U.S. Olympic teammate Brown early in the second period. “I think it’s good for a team to gel, to bind together. It was hard to take the loss, but I think the way we lost, the way we battled, the way we went down swinging, you can build off that.”

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